The Religion Thread (I hate you guys)

[Thunder]

You would be correct. I'm bad at this. I'm an agnostic that was (and lives in) an extremely belligerent Christian family. I spend a lot of time trying to rationalize their insanity in my head because I want to help them. It bleeds into my posts.



It's not under anything. I'm referencing the terrifying number of people who have said it is literally under god that come out of the woodwork whenever "Christian values" are attacked.

The logical fallacy is this:

Claims are made that the Constitution was drafted with Christian laws involved.

But if this is the case, the founding fathers are hypocrites. A massive number of the original settlers came to North America to get away from the Anglican Church being horrible snoots. This is regurgitated in American History all over the place. If this is the truth and we are at the time of the Constitution not even 150 years removed from these events, why on earth would you do exactly was done that made you want to leave England? England at the time was about as close to being a nation under god as you can get without being a theocracy.

There's a bunch of references to Christianity in the early documents, because like I said, most of those men were deists or from various Christian religions. It's not a far fetched assumption to make that they would include some wording here and there to appease the more extreme end of the time's political spectrum, among other reasons. Anything further than that is absurdly illogical.

But this shouldn't be a surprise. If you want to see illogical, let me know. I'll mail you one of the "Christian History" books that made me demand to be taken out of homeschooling and put in public schools.

Oh. Seems blubb caught on faster than I

I thought you were saying those things literally instead of just referencing what people believe

[Andalusian girls]

I've always interpreted the founding fathers and their freedom of religion to simply be "freedom to be a Christian the way I want to", without even taking into account other religions of the world. There was never any concerted effort by the government to stop the forced conversion of Native Americans or African slaves to Christianity. I highly doubt the founding fathers were even considering Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, etc to be a thing worth concerning themselves with.

Thomas Jefferson wrote and helped pass the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom upon which the federal amendment would be based (condensed and composed by his protege James Madison) and he apparently countenanced both polytheists and atheists when devising legal protection for religious minorities famously stating,

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

[Galkaeater]

You would be correct. I'm bad at this. I'm an agnostic that was (and lives in) an extremely belligerent Christian family. I spend a lot of time trying to rationalize their insanity in my head because I want to help them. It bleeds into my posts.



It's not under anything. I'm referencing the terrifying number of people who have said it is literally under god that come out of the woodwork whenever "Christian values" are attacked.

The logical fallacy is this:

Claims are made that the Constitution was drafted with Christian laws involved.

But if this is the case, the founding fathers are hypocrites. A massive number of the original settlers came to North America to get away from the Anglican Church being horrible snoots. This is regurgitated in American History all over the place. If this is the truth and we are at the time of the Constitution not even 150 years removed from these events, why on earth would you do exactly was done that made you want to leave England? England at the time was about as close to being a nation under god as you can get without being a theocracy.

There's a bunch of references to Christianity in the early documents, because like I said, most of those men were deists or from various Christian religions. It's not a far fetched assumption to make that they would include some wording here and there to appease the more extreme end of the time's political spectrum, among other reasons. Anything further than that is absurdly illogical.

But this shouldn't be a surprise. If you want to see illogical, let me know. I'll mail you one of the "Christian History" books that made me demand to be taken out of homeschooling and put in public schools.

If your talking about the puritans they were hardly a tolerant group that just wanted to practice a religion in peace, they were very politicaly active, seeking to change the anglican church into their image since it was too catholic, thus making them a nusance to alot of people and drawing alot of ire.
Some left for America to found a new christian nation to create heaven on earth and leave england to be destroyed by god for being impure, yes they wanted to create a nation where they were free to practice their religion but they did not believe in freedom of religion.

[Tymon]

If your talking about the puritans they were hardly a tolerant group that just wanted to practice a religion in peace, they were very politicaly active, seeking to change the anglican church into their image since it was too catholic, thus making them a nusance to alot of people and drawing alot of ire.
Some left for America to found a new christian nation to create heaven on earth and leave england to be destroyed by god for being impure, yes they wanted to create a nation where they were free to practice their religion but they did not believe in freedom of religion.

Both the puritans and pilgrims were absolute shitstains. In no way am I contesting that at all. In fact, they were already hypocrites; after leaving England citing "persecution" they immediately went on to persecute the living hell out of the secular colonists and ESPECIALLY the Native Americans.

Course, like I said, the cheery bullshit vomited up by decades of revisionist history courses in grade school will be sure to tell you that everything was wonderful. Them wanting to leave citing religious intolerance was just one of many hypocritical actions that I was pointing out.

[Marootsoobutsu]

Considering theres strong evidence many of the Founding Fathers were deists rather than Christian, I'm gonna go with a no on this one.

This tired revision of history is old.

There is strong evidence that Franklin, Jefferson, Allen, Paine were Deists, that Adams and a few more were Unitarian, but the idea that "most of the founders were Deists" has been pretty categorically done away with. There's simply no evidence to support it, and it's based on a book that lists 7 men (Washington, Jay, J. Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison), as the "Primary Founders", and noted that 6 of them were Deists. Except Adams was a Unitarian (not a Christian, not a Deist-- his god was more involved; Madison may well have been) and the most recent looks at Washington's life leave him MAYBE a Deist, but he *always*, privately and publicly, identified himself as a Christian). However, when you go by signers of the Declaration, AoC, and the Constitution, the bulk were Christian, a handful were Deist/Unitarian, and then about 30% are kind of in an "unknown"-- we just don't know enough.

The whole thing is based on the idea that we can ignore the REALLY INCONVENIENT parts of history that feature the founders endorsing religion, using the state to support churches, and generally-- even among the vast bulk of the Deists-- ensorsing the Bible as the supreme source of morality. A lot of that was ignored, because A) it didn't fit the doctrinal change that was desired, by B) dismissing it as nothing more than catering to the masses or as political form necessary to succeed. It assumes a LOT that just isn't in any primary sources, and over the last 60 years~ has become incredibly ingrained as "truth"-- every bit as much as the bad textbooks from our parents/grandparents age. It's been revisited, largely thanks to McPherson's influence on history in the absolute reliance on primary sources, and gosh-- it turns out that the assertion that "most were Deist" just isn't true unless you go by an incredibly selective and small list that ignores or minimizes the contributions of hundreds of framers of this nation in its infancy.

The majority of the states had a state endorsed religion-- keep in mind, too, that for most then, the idea of "religion" is something we would call "denomination", though questions of Christ's divinity were still somewhat in play with God. In most states, you could not hold public office without being a professed Christian-- in some states, it was even more restricted to Presbyterians and Trinitarians. That includes Virginia, with Jefferson, Washington, and Madison heavily working to make that the case.

The Founders didn't want the federal government deciding which brand of Christianity would be most influential, but to a tee, every single one of them expected the Christian Church as a whole to influence the workings of government-- what they feared far more was the government interfering with the Church.

And here's the part I don't get about the objection-- and the overwhelming majority of primary sources all confirm it-- is that... well, things change. It's OKAY to say, "Well, they didn't have Evolution. Non-Religious morality wasn't an accepted idea. They didn't have any way to explain the universe without God, so of COURSE they relied on the divine. And yeah, it was a society dominated socially, culturally, and religiously by Christianity in one stripe or another, and deviations tended not to be from the core tenants of Biblical morals or appeal to the Bible as authority, but interpretations of it. Jefferson and Paine definitely led the way in rejecting the Bible, but it was a long way from commonplace or acceptable. But we've moved on, and the framework they instituted allows us to realize more religions exist, but we have a system that doesn't require us to change to accomodate them-- the laws are in place for their freedom. We can be bigger than the Founders, as we have been on other issues-- from race issues with ... well, everyone who wasn't German/English, but especially American Indians and blacks."

You don't NEED the founders to be on your side to make an argument, and appealing to them NOT expecting a Christian nation (when most very certainly, without any question, DID), is reliant on a really, really bad re-interpretation of history that unfortunately replaced an earlier, even worse re-interpretation of history.


Don't get me wrong: a lot of the "They were Deists" arguments made a lot of sense, particularly in the framework of the dominant historic interpretation philosophy of basically 1950 through the early 2000s. It examined class, very, very strongly, and it largely sought to explain religion in social construct terms. Within that framework, with a few extremely well documented examples, it projected to lesser known examples, and put the same spin on some other extremely well documented cases-- giving the benefit of doubt (most notably with Washington), to the method that best suited the philosophy of the time.

The problem is, that the primary evidence *just isn't there*. We don't KNOW what Washington was. Some thought he was a Deist, many others thought he was a Christian. He *ALWAYS*, publicly and privately, so far as we have any of his words or recorded statements, identified as a Christian. He didn't talk a lot about Jesus, but that doesn't really say he wasn't Christian. And given the enormity of importance he put on prayer, on moral living to receive God's blessing, and on moral laws, at *WORST* he was a Unitarian (ie-- God is far more active than the passive clock-maker god of the Deists), but the truth is... we don't know. And I don't mean that in the "no one knows what's in anyone's heart." I mean we just flat do not have the information. Washington's public deeds were very overtly faithful; his private thoughts were more well guarded and less given to discuss faith. Does that mean he wasn't really a Christian, and just went through the expected motions of a Christian-dominated society? That's the angle the historians of the last 60 years have taken, but... it's just as likely that he WAS a Christian, and just didn't discuss his faith in writ, and preferred to act upon it-- something he very much did.


Don't get me wrong: the vast, vast majority of Christians I speak with are adamant on holding to the even-older histories, the ones that were largely, it seems, just made up. They are ignorant-- though I think on the whole far less ignorant than folks here seem to think.



For what it's worth, my senior seminar was a focus on the history of the history of religion in America, studying how historic methods and interpretations have changed over the last 100 years. And based on everything there, 5 years ago, the trends to rely much, much more heavily on primary, and less on secondary interpretive sources has been growing rapidly and very much changing the landscape of what is accepted as "true".


What we know is that most of the founders went on and had very Christian-laden governments in their states. They endorsed-- even required-- prayer before Congressional sessions. They did NOT want the government to interfere with the Church, but very few would have even considered forbidding the Church from influencing the government. Their definition of religion was VERY different from ours today-- it really did mean "Christianity", and the only question was which brand; there were even judges who would not take testimony from professed non-Christians, as their word could not be trusted.

But past that, it really, really breaks down. How do you define Founding Fathers? The phrase wasn't even around until the 20th century. Do you mean the highest, most influential few? The signers of the founding documents? The leaders and instigators of the Revolution? The philosophers of the time? The broader you get, the more deeply Christian you get. And the deeper you get into the religion of the time, the more you find that Deism was a hyper-elite few, Unitarianism was a highly scrutinized deviation, and that the remainder of the population could often not really be known-- it was required, legally, to baptize in most of the colonies, and that created an association, but how devout were the Founders? Again, that depends on your definition of Founders, and on what you would constitute as demonstrable proof of devotion.

It's just... complex. There is no simple, single, true answer that will satisfy everyone with a dog in the fight. But for every Treaty of Tripoli, there are a dozen and more cases of the earliest states and officials endorsing Christianity publicly and as a necessity for the wellbeing of America.

It's a useless fight to fight for those against the idea, though-- it largely doesn't matter what the Founders envisioned. The world is different. Philosophy has expanded, and it no more makes sense to cling to the Founders than it did for those of the Middle Ages to cling ferociously to Aristotle and Plato. They had some great ideas, they affected incredible change, but they were wrong a lot, too. If you don't LIKE the Christian nation they very much seemed to have established (depending on your definition of Christian nation, but in some senses it's very much not up for debate that they did, while in others it's a legitimate debate either way, but there is no place where there is no legitimate debate against it not being a Christian nation), that's fine-- we've changed a LOT culturally and socially, and the definitions we cleave to have changed, as well. The religion of the nation has changed over time, both in a Christian sense and in a total-all-religions sense. And that's fine; that's part of history.

But when your whole idea is that "It's better in the future than the past," clinging to the past-- a past dominated actively and passively by Christianity-- seems a really, really weird choice. And when you do it and are supported by activist historian ideas that are more and more being discredited, it diminishes the case even more.

[Marootsoobutsu]

Both the puritans and pilgrims were absolute shitstains. In no way am I contesting that at all. In fact, they were already hypocrites; after leaving England citing "persecution" they immediately went on to persecute the living hell out of the secular colonists and ESPECIALLY the Native Americans.

Course, like I said, the cheery bullshit vomited up by decades of revisionist history courses in grade school will be sure to tell you that everything was wonderful. Them wanting to leave citing religious intolerance was just one of many hypocritical actions that I was pointing out.

They didn't leave because of religious intolerance. They left because of religious impurity. When the Pilgrims left England, they went and settled among the Dutch-- who were all kinds of tolerant. TOO tolerant. The Pilgrims and Puritans were nuisances, but they weren't really persecuted, and the idea that they came here to escape persecution has essentially been discredited absolutely. They left because the Government was corrupting the Church, and they wanted to re-establish a pure Church. They weren't interested in tolerance, they weren't interested in religious freedom. They were interested in religious purity.

[Thunder]

Guy pls.

If we were to go by historical evidence then Obama is a christian. Had I majored in bullshit I'd write up a longer story about it, but I think that's a pretty succinct point for a forum with people who give little fucks, no? Were you the reason your professor had to give upper limits on pages for papers handed in?

[Marootsoobutsu]

Guy pls.

If we were to go by historical evidence then Obama is a christian. Had I majored in bullshit I'd write up a longer story about it, but I think that's a pretty succinct point for a forum with people who give little fucks, no? Were you the reason your professor had to give upper limits on pages for papers handed in?

I've never claimed to be brief.

As for Obama, maybe he is. He's enough politician to say one thing and be another, but he also uses more Bible-talk than is probably necessary for his ends. I disagree with his interpretations of the Bible, but I'm not prepared to doubt his sincerity. Bust out his personal letters, let's see what he says about himself in private.

[kuronosan]

I'm sure you're well-versed in theology, but you have absolutely no clue if you think America "must be a Christian nation".

Arguing on the technicality that Protestantism was the only real religion therefore that's what they meant by the establishment clause in terms of not establishing one over the other is revisionist nonsense.

While I understand your point of view, it's ridiculous to think that America is a Christian nation now, whether it was before or not. To argue that it must be or it is a disgusting immoral place is utter hypocrisy.

He is right, however, that Puritans weren't escaping for "freedom". They were tired of being laughed at for being so strict and thus they left to find lands where they were free to practice religious purity. They were frigid extremists and literalists.

[Thunder]

I'm sure you're well-versed in theology, but you have absolutely no clue if you think America "must be a Christian nation".

Arguing on the technicality that Protestantism was the only real religion therefore that's what they meant by the establishment clause in terms of not establishing one over the other is revisionist nonsense.

While I understand your point of view, it's ridiculous to think that America is a Christian nation now, whether it was before or not. To argue that it must be or it is a disgusting immoral place is utter hypocrisy.

He is right, however, that Puritans weren't escaping for "freedom". They were tired of being laughed at for being so strict and thus they left to find lands where they were free to practice religious purity. They were frigid extremists and literalists.

It's one thing to say it's ridiculous america must be a christian nation, it's another to say it's ridiculous to say america is a christian nation. I'd be in agreement to say it's ridiculous america is a christian nation, though

We're in a time where it's political suicide to admit atheism, people stand against homosexuality, and embryos are people

To me, that's more christian than 300 years ago where we had every politician in favor of ignoring religion for matters of the country/state. Plus ol Ben frank's heathenous sexual escapades, I can appreciate that

[Marootsoobutsu]

I'm sure you're well-versed in theology, but you have absolutely no clue if you think America "must be a Christian nation".

Arguing on the technicality that Protestantism was the only real religion therefore that's what they meant by the establishment clause in terms of not establishing one over the other is revisionist nonsense.

While I understand your point of view, it's ridiculous to think that America is a Christian nation now, whether it was before or not. To argue that it must be or it is a disgusting immoral place is utter hypocrisy.

He is right, however, that Puritans weren't escaping for "freedom". They were tired of being laughed at for being so strict and thus they left to find lands where they were free to practice religious purity. They were frigid extremists and literalists.

*I* don't think America must be a Christian nation, but most of the Founders felt that America must be a Christian nation for it to succeed; I tend to think the same, but obviously that's not an absolute, irrefutable truth and is based on my faith-tinted view of historic interpretation (I make a distinction between that and my scholarly interpretations-- one describes what DID happen, the other ascribes reason to why that happened in a spiritual sense). And if America had been formed in, say, the 1870s, I'm relatively sure the sentiment would have been severely watered down-- though when the French Revolution came around, even the likes of Franklin and Jefferson were appalled at them removing God as well as the state. So who knows?

And it's not that Protestantism was the only thing allowed (Maryland was thoroughly Catholic), it's that Christianity was certainly the expectation of most of the Founders-- that's not revisionism, it's in literally hundreds of letters and journals by the signers of the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, and hundreds of the same for the original 13 states first governors, representatives, and senators, both nationally and local. Even Jefferson expected the Christian Church to influence the government. They understood that morality stems from faith-- you are free to argue that point, and it has been done much more successfully since the Revolution, but at the time, that was religion was understood to be the bedrock upon which morality rested, and from the most adamant non-Christians to the most pious in America, the morality of the Bible was understood to be the best morality in the world. New ideas-- Locke, the Scottish Enlightenment, etc...-- were supported in their Biblical appeal, not seen as a new truth, but rather a pre-existing truth, in the Bible, that had been put into new words or better understood. That's not revisionism: that WAS the mentality of the time. Even if you rejected PART of the Bible (as Jefferson most famously did), you still, back then, relied on it-- again, Jefferson most certainly did.


As for whether America is a Christian nation now... yes, and no. The fact that polls say 80% identify as Christian would make America a Christian nation the same way Mexico is Catholic or India is Hindu-- it's not officially endorsed, but most people identify that way, and it informs their politics.

How DEVOUTLY Christian is of course another matter-- no where near 80% are regular church-goers, fewer regularly attend church, fewer attend weekly, and still fewer donate, and the fewest tithe. But at the same time, many political issues are based on or argued around what are generally seen as Christian values. I think the country is definitely moving away from being a Christian country in any sense, and that if trends continue, by the time my children are middle aged, it will be less than half claiming Christianity and the social burden to feel like you must may well be gone. I actually view that as a good thing-- I do no think that Christianity should be easy, and if it is, it just gets so diluted and lukewarm. Hot, or cold, but it should be felt.

But you can be a Christian nation without being a theocracy-- again, Mexico is a Catholic nation, but is not a theocracy, and India is definitely secular in its government, but most people would consider it a Hindu nation.

And I certainly don't think there is any imperative, either in law or in reality, that America must be Christian, or must remain Christian. Whatever the Founders expectations were, they didn't write the law to be Christian only. Nor do I think there is a religious imperative that once-Christian-always-Christian on a national scale-- the country is free to move whichever direction it likes, and the Church has done an exceptionally poor job of doing its works over the last 75~ years-- I don't blame people for leaving it, and finding it uncompelling.

[Eurell]

Part of a treaty ratified in 1797

ARTICLE 11.

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion...

Joining the thread late, so this may be irrelevant at this point. But there it is

[Thunder]

7 posts up, mr. writes novels on forums and makes everyone run away from threads already touched on that

But for every Treaty of Tripoli, there are a dozen and more cases of the earliest states and officials endorsing Christianity publicly and as a necessity for the wellbeing of America.

fyi, your quote is from the treaty of tripoli

[Marootsoobutsu]

7 posts up, mr. writes novels on forums and makes everyone run away from threads already touched on that


fyi, your quote is from the treaty of tripoli

That's MR. mr. novel to you, buddy.

[Eurell]

7 posts up, mr. writes novels on forums and makes everyone run away from threads already touched on that


fyi, your quote is from the treaty of tripoli

Fair enough. I got about 40 posts in before giving up on reading every word in the thread lol.

[Xno Kappa]

Reading the election thread got me wondering about the differences between the sects of Christianity. So rather than derail that thread I'll post here; what exactly are they?

I was raised catholic for example, so what the fuck is a Protestant and evangelical?

[Marootsoobutsu]

Reading the election thread got me wondering about the differences between the sects of Christianity. So rather than derail that thread I'll post here; what exactly are they?

I was raised catholic for example, so what the fuck is a Protestant and evangelical?

So, Protestants are Christians who just don't hold with a lot of the Catholic traditions-- the papacy, for example, but also some of Catholic dogma regarding things like the Eucharist, or baptism. Protestants are 1/3 of the big ol' Christian blocs, with Orthodox being the third.

Evangelical Christians often (but not always) Protestants. As the name implies, they are very focused on evangelism, or converting the unfaithful. While they have a bad reputation to some, the vast, vast majority of evangelicals are actually pretty good people who are concerned with doing good-- but there are DEFINITELY hate-mongering branches that give the movement a horrible name, and there are times where the non-hateful they are in conflict with non-religious groups when it comes to helping those in absolute poverty (condom and contraceptive use, particularly by missionary/evangelical Catholics, but also by a not-insignificant number of Protestants, is probably the biggest example of this). In full disclosure, some of the evangelicals are those who wander around with "God Hates Fags" signs, but they really are a very, very loud, very, very unpopular minority within the Church.

Within the Orthodox, you basically have Greek and Russian Orthodox as the two biggest sub-divisions, though there are others about. Within Protestantism, you'll find Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopals, Methodists, the Amish, etc.... It's basically a catch-all for non-Catholic, non-Orthodox Christians post-Martin-Luther.

[Cantih]

Ok.

Jesus happened.
Then this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_...ty_and_Judaism
Then Christianity slowly went from being persecuted by the Roman Empire, to taking over the joint.
Then this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_...nical_Councils which basically started the formalization of the Catholic Church.
Across the councils, and a little bit afterwards as a consequence of the Crusades, the schism between east and west began and finalized. First was the Oriental Orthodoxy (which includes sects such as Coptics, Armenians, Ethiopian, etc.), then later the Eastern Orthodoxy (which includes Greek and Russian and others.)

Now, as a consequence of the institution of the church's relationship to the population, which is a factor of the state, occasionally religious and secular politics would start reacting to each other. (Not going to bother with links here, if you wanna see it first hand, go buy Crusader Kings II and DLC.)
As a consequence of all THAT, this happened in 1517 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ninety-Five_Theses -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Reformation
Basically, due to fuckery of the institution of the Catholic Church (both religious and secular), Christians across Europe said to the Catholic Church "I'm a Christian, but fuck you, I'm taking my faith and going over here."
And so were established Lutheran, Calvinist/Reform, Presbyterian, Anabaptist, Anglican, Puritanism (those wacky pilgrims), Baptist, and some others.

Some time passed. Then you have the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Great_Awakening and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Great_Awakening giving rise to such things as Methodist, Adventist, Pentecostalism, Jehovah's Witness, and Mormonism.

Evangelicalism isn't a a denomination, but a stance that can be taken by a portion of a denomination. The denominations of the Great Awakenings have a tendency to be Evangelical, but some Reformation denominations got on board (notably, Baptists.) The main focus of Evangelicalism is to spread their denomination of Christianity. Publicly, and often loudly and persistently.

[kuronosan]

One of the most important councils being the council of Nicea.

[Marootsoobutsu]

Though point, many (most) Christians don't consider Mormons a denomination (it didn't come from the SGA, though it was a roughly-kinda-similar time; adding an entire testament differentiates them from Christians theologically at least as much as the New Testament differentiates Christians from Jews). Also, the Pilgrims weren't Puritans; the Puritans came after the Pilgrims. Also also, many Evangelicals aren't loud (though most active Evangelicals are persistent). Also also also, many of the more active Evangelical programs have grown increasingly non-denominational in their outreach, and are less concerned with someone becoming a Baptist than they used to be, or a Methodist, or *pick a Pentacostal*, and more concerned with the basic tenants of Christ. There are exceptions, especially (as I've understood it, though my experience there is extremely limited) in the South-- but then, it's most heavily Southerners, in my experience, and to a lesser extent Midwesterners, for whom Christianity isn't a faith, it's a cultural religion.

Edit: that was in response to Cantih, who I just now realized is not Canith.